Continuing Cross Cultural Implications of Corporate Social Responsibility

Dear freinds,

I open the blog today with a concrete example of the cross cultural implications of corporate social responsibility. This example is drawm from my work with corporations. There is a multinational corporation whose international headquarters are located from the corporation's beginnings, in the USA. Culturally, as understood through application of some of the lenses that are part of learning one's own culture, the USA is one of the nations in our world that values the individual and his/her individual accomplishments. The USA also values and functions in a manner that is farily comfortable with a short distance between the source of power and the individuals that the source of power is responsible for in the work setting. The USA is also considered to be masculine, although not as masculine in its cultural values as some other national cultures. This means that the USA cuture does value some of the feminine charactieristics, as understood in one of the lenses through which culture is understood.

The USA multinational corporation has chosen to open manufacturing operations in southern China, in response to an impetus by the Chinese government to bring manufacturing there. The Chinese culture values a collectivist outlook on individuals, meaning that the value of the individual is not as strong as the value of the group as a whole. This is quite a contrast to the USA value of individualism. The Chinese culture values a long distance between the source of power and those for whom the power source is responsible. Again this is in full contrast to the USA value regarding power distance. Finally, for this brief example, the Chinese culture highly values the masculine set of charactereistics, with very little if any value of the feminine characteristics in its culture. This measure is not totally opposite to the USA value here but is on a continuum, quite far from the more middle fo the road USA value of masculine characteristics with some feminine characteristics worked into the USA point of view.

If the USA corporation wishes to contribute in a meaningful way through its corporate social responsibility policy to the area where its southern Chinese operation is located, then the USA multinational must come to understand and to respect the Chinese values, as seen in its Chinese practices that will be part of the Chinese operation on a daily basis.

To the point, this example clarifies the importance of the First Best Practice for minimizing risk of all forms in managing successfully global contracting operations. Effective corporate social responsibility policy, effective for both the corporation and for the national culture where the corporation is working, should reflect a functional knowledge of the corporation's culture as well as that of the national culture where the corporation wishes to operate efficiently and effectively.

I look forward to hearing from you with your thoughts and or experiences on this blog topic.

Warm regards,

Jane

Jane E. Smtih, Esq.
LiSimba Consulting Services, Inc.
Building Relationships for International Business Success
www.lisimba.com
jsmith@lisimba.com